


Psyche's Contemplation

by Etrangere



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Candles, Dubious Consent, F/M, Incest, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-22
Updated: 2011-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-19 17:09:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/203185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etrangere/pseuds/Etrangere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she had been a little girl, she had used to dream of what having the perfect big brother would be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Psyche's Contemplation

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to cyrulean for her beta work.

He was too soft. Lying on the bed, face entwined by the wavering lights and shadows of candlelight, he was softer than ever. A study in chiaroscuro.

He was supposed to be harsh, to be strong, to be made of obsidian-sharp edges and blazing lightning. Like her. Like their father.

She bent over him, and the shadows merged even more, twisting lines on his scar like a dual mask. He looked unwhole, confused and needy.

When she had been a little girl, she had used to dream of what having the perfect big brother would be. It had been silly, of course. Much better for her to have a foolish brother, so as to shine the better in the eyes of their father and one day inherit the throne.

Yet she had dreamed.

She laid one index over his pouting low lip. Full and soft. Fire wasn’t supposed to be soft. It was supposed to burn, to scorch, to blacken, to devour, to melt and forge; to remake old things into new things, soft things into steel.

She smiled.

One drop of wax flowed down from the candle and stroked his collarbone. He woke up with a start, eyelids fluttering out of sleep.

“Azula…?”

She pressed her finger tighter to his lips. “Shush.”

He looked up at her obediently. “I should have been the elder brother and you the little sister,” she said.

He started to protest but she tilted her hands just slightly, so that more wax fell down on his skin, and the protest got lost in the following gasp.

She wanted him stripped; she wanted him cut and sliced open, up to the barren bones and burnt stark. She wanted to see if there were hard things hidden in that softness of his.

She joined two fingers, as if to call her blue fire, and set them on the crack of his collarbone, watched him swallow; let her fingers trail slowly, slowly over the length of his breastbone. Where her finger led, she let the wax follow, eliciting more intake of breath from him.

“Azula!” Anger was ever his smokescreen, to hide within its confounding curls and twirls.

Her hand had reached his stomach, and the wax pooled in the belly button.

“Zuko!” She mocked in mirroring tone.

“ _Stop_ it.”

She arched her eyebrow at him. “Why?”

He flushed. Too soft, too soft; and the skin under her fingers so _warm_.

“ _Because_ ,” he countered.

“I was wondering, big brother,” she moved closer to him, whispered to his ear, “if there was anything _hard_ in you.”

He roared and pushed her, but she evaded easily, flowing out of his range with a laugh. The candle fell, forgotten, onto the cold tiles.

“You’re such a fool, Zuzu.” She smirked at him.

He stood, naked and breathless with rage, ever so pliable to her every plays. Still soft, even when furiously heated.

She turned and walked away. There was only so much that even the best smith could do if the material was unworthy.

Still. It was fun to try.


End file.
